Silver Tears

by Camilla Lackberg

  “Twenty-five,” a man next to her interrupted.

  Faye turned toward him, quickly taking him in from head to toe. Gray suit: Hugo Boss. White shirt, well pressed. Platinum Rolex with a blue face—about three hundred thousand kronor—on his left wrist. Thick, fair hair. It was either good genes or a discreet visit to some clinic. Pretty commonplace appearance but looked like he kept himself in shape. The SPR Athlete Factory in Östermalm was her guess. He seemed the type who went in for martial arts training.

  “I know, I look younger,” Brasse the bartender said while pouring a cocktail into a Russian matryoshka doll.

  “Old enough,” said Faye.

  The man next to her laughed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “No, no, don’t let me interrupt…”

  Brasse escaped to the far end of the bar and began to take orders. Faye turned toward the man in the gray suit, who proffered a hand.

  “David,” he said. “David Schiller.”

  She reluctantly took his hand.

  “Faye.”

  “A lovely name. Unusual.”

  She could see it in his eyes when he made the connection.

  “You’re…”

  “Yes,” she said curtly.

  David seemed to get the message, because he didn’t say anything else about it. Instead, he nodded at her laptop.

  “You’re working hard—I assume that’s what’s behind all the success. Myself, I’ve got a meeting with a good friend in a bit.”

  “Okay, so what line of work are you in?”

  Faye pushed the laptop aside. Brasse was better flirting material, but she couldn’t focus on work now. She might as well pass the time talking to a stranger.

  “Finance. Cliché, I know. Finance bro sipping a G&T in the Cadier Bar.”

  “A little clichéd, I suppose. Well. Very clichéd.”

  “Pathetic, to be completely honest.”

  He smiled at her and something happened to his appearance. For a second he was almost good-looking.

  “Incredibly pathetic,” she said, leaning forward. “How about we play finance-dude bingo? See how much I can get right?”

  “Go for it,” he said, amused, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Okay, I’ll start with a few easy ones.” She frowned slightly. “BMW? No, no. Alfa Romeo.”

  “Bingo.”

  He smiled again and Faye couldn’t help smiling back.

  “Hmm, you dine at the Teatergrillen restaurant at least once—no, twice—a month?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Now we come to the question of whether you live in an apartment or a house. Östermalm or Djursholm. Or what about Saltsjöbaden…Well, I reckon it’s a house out in Saltis.”

  “Bingo again. You’re amazing.”

  “Yes, I am. But thus far it’s all been obvious. Now it’s a little trickier…”

  Faye finished the last of her drink and David flagged Brasse over.

  “Same again?”

  “No, I think I’ll try out one of those matryoshka cocktails.”

  Brasse nodded and set to work.

  “I hope I didn’t ruin what could have been the beginning of a beautiful love story.” David tilted his head toward Brasse.

  “Oh, I’m getting tired of twenty-five-year-olds,” Faye said. “They’re too smooth and enthusiastic.”

  “Smooth and enthusiastic…”

  David laughed. Faye really did like his laugh.

  “Well, keep guessing. You’ve knocked it out of the park so far. It’s only slightly worrying that I’m apparently such a cliché.”

  “Mmm, let me see. You clearly work out. Martial arts? SPR?”

  “Yep. I’m kind of impressed by that one, actually.”

  “Which discipline?”

  “Brazilian jujitsu.”

  “Naturally. Okay, what else? You’ve tried out paddle tennis in the last year and now you’re completely smitten?”

  “Bingo.”

  “But your wife still practices at the Royal Tennis Hall. When she’s not riding.”

  David raised his eyebrows slightly.

  “Bingo. And bingo. Ack, that’s enough.” David shook his head and hid his face in feigned shame.

  Faye grinned and took a sip of her drink. David’s phone lit up as a text arrived.

  “My contact is here—he’s out on the veranda. Nice to meet you…Faye.”

  When he had gone, she turned back to the laptop and pulled it closer. David had put her in an unexpectedly good mood and she was able to focus on work again.

  A message popped up on her screen. From Kerstin. Faye had been about to put her cocktail to her lips but stopped mid-movement. Another share in Revenge had been bought. She shut the laptop and requested the bill. The good mood was gone without a trace.

  The coffee was weak and acrid, as usual at AKV Accounts. The offices themselves were small and dark, with bookcases everywhere groaning under the burden of binders stuffed with papers. So much for a paperless society. Nevertheless, Faye and Kerstin had chosen to hold the meeting at AKV’s office instead of their own rather slicker one. For the time being, it wasn’t smart to show anyone outside the company that anything was brewing. Faye looked up at the illustration pinned to the wall of Revenge’s accountant, Örjan Birgersson: a duck swimming placidly above the water’s surface but paddling like mad beneath it. That was exactly how she felt.

  “More coffee?” Örjan offered, but both Faye and Kerstin shook their heads emphatically.

  It had seemed polite to accept one cup, but neither of them felt able to subject herself to two.

  “So what do you think?”

  Faye leaned forward and tried to read Örjan’s expression. He was a small, gray-haired man who wore thin steel-rimmed spectacles. His eyes were alert and he was always disproportionately enthusiastic about everything to do with numbers, key figures, and debits and credits.

  “Well, this is complicated,” he said cheerfully, and Faye could feel herself grinding her teeth.

  For her, this was a matter of life and death. For her, Revenge was a living thing—something made from flesh and blood, something breathing. Alive. Chris lived on in Revenge. Julienne was in Revenge. Kerstin. All the women whose wounds and scars had formed the basis of Revenge—they were all living parts of the company. But they were also the ones who were now threatening its existence.

  “Kerstin was quite right. When you look at these acquisitions, it’s possible to discern a pattern. So there’s much to suggest that it is one and the same buyer.”

  “Can you see who’s behind it? Is there a common denominator?”

  Faye took a sip of the coffee and pulled a face. She set the cup aside to avoid making the same mistake again.

  “Not yet—it’s going to take time. Whoever’s buying up the shares—whether it’s an individual or a corporation—knows what he’s doing. The best way I can describe it is as a ball of yarn. A muddle of companies and acquisitions—if it hadn’t been for the fact that all of them follow the same pattern it would have been hard to spot that it must be the same single buyer behind them all. The pattern gave them away. Which, as I said, Kerstin very deftly identified.”

  He fluttered his eyelashes at Kerstin, and Faye looked at him resignedly. Kerstin didn’t look in the slightest bit amused.

  “Do your best to find out what you can. As quickly as possible,” she said in her most professional tone.

  Oblivious, Örjan carried on twinkling his eyes at her. “Of course, Kerstin. Of course. Here at AKV, we always do our best. If I may say so, I’m one of the very best in the business. For instance, the army recently called us in to assist—”

  “What’s our situation?” Faye said, interrupting him.

  She’d listened to enough of Örjan
’s war stories from the battlefields of accountancy to know that she couldn’t endure sitting through another one.

  “It doesn’t look all that promising.”

  “We know that much, but we need details.”

  Faye heard how sharp her voice sounded, but stress and impatience were merging into one. She was a woman of action—she wanted to act. Until she was in possession of all the relevant facts, she was powerless. If she was to strike back, she needed to know how and against whom.

  “My impression from the new share purchases made yesterday is that the buyer no longer cares about concealing that a takeover is in progress. They’re now operating on the assumption that alarm bells have gone off.”

  Faye muttered and Kerstin placed a placatory hand on her arm. No one was going to come and take what was hers. No one was going to come and take what she had risked and sacrificed so much to build.

  And she wasn’t the only one who’d made sacrifices. When Chris died, she’d left Faye the hair-care empire she’d built up from scratch—her life’s work. That company had been merged with Revenge, so if the buyout succeeded it would destroy Chris’s legacy. If she let that happen, Chris would probably rise from the grave to strangle her with her bare hands. Faye would have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of her days.

  “Find out who’s behind this. And give us a printout of everything you pull together. We’ll take it from there.”

  Faye got up and Örjan looked disappointed. He looked at Kerstin, who also stood up, took her bag, and smoothed her skirt.

  “I realize you may have a lot to do just now, but we all have to eat nonetheless, so I was going to ask whether…”

  He looked once again at a panic-stricken Kerstin, who nudged Faye with her elbow.

  Faye cleared her throat.

  “We don’t have time to eat right now, but you have my number. Call me as soon as you know something.”

  “Of course. But I think it may be tricky for you girls to straighten this out. Maybe you want to bring in a team from McKinsey? They’ve got some good guys over there.”

  “No thanks.”

  Faye slammed the door behind them.

  “I’m going to replace Örjan,” she said, once they were in the taxi. “We’ll have to find someone new.”

  Kerstin nodded.

  “I realized it the moment he called us girls.”

  The taxi pulled up outside the gilded revolving door of the Grand and they got out.

  “Lunch?” Faye picked up her handbag and coat, glancing at Kerstin.

  “I’ve got a couple of things I want to check up on right away. Do you mind eating lunch alone?”

  “No, I’ll manage. I have some things I need to attend to as well. But let’s meet at two o’clock, shall we? In my room? Then we can roll up our sleeves.”

  “Yes, two’s fine.”

  Kerstin went through the revolving door and Faye made to follow her, throwing her coat over one arm so that she could pull the key out of her bag. She came to an abrupt halt when someone tugged at the coat from behind. She turned around and saw that the coat had gotten caught in the doors.

  “For fuck’s sake!”

  She tugged at the coat, but it was completely jammed. The clerk behind the lectern in the lobby hurried over to help her, but he had no luck either. He made an apologetic expression and rushed upstairs for help while Faye continued to pull at her coat.

  Someone tapped on the glass. It was David, the man from the bar the day before.

  “If you take a step back, I’ll push the door from my side. You won’t be able to open the door by pulling the coat.”

  “No, I’d got that,” Faye said dryly.

  She took a step back. Carefully, David pushed the door and it created a bigger crack, allowing her to release the coat. The clerk who was coming back down the stairs with the concierge looked relieved.

  David smiled at her.

  “Good thing that worked.”

  “Off for some lunchtime paddle tennis?” Faye said petulantly.

  She knew she ought to be grateful, but he looked so insufferably pleased to have been able to play the knight in shining armor.

  “No, I thought I’d have a solo lunch somewhere nearby. Have you eaten?”

  “No,” she replied before immediately biting her tongue.

  “Are you going to eat?”

  “Yes. Well, no. I really need to do some work and thought I’d get—”

  “Well, then. Let’s eat lunch together. Do you want to eat here or shall we go somewhere else?”

  “Eat here.”

  Faye bit her tongue again. What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t even want to have lunch with this man. But she supposed she would struggle to focus on work after the meeting with the accountants, so she might as well have something proper to eat.

  “The bistro. Lunch is on you,” she said.

  He flashed that smile again.

  “Naturally.”

  “I warn you, I’m expensive to run. I eat like a lumberjack and drink champagne like a trophy wife whose husband has just left her for the secretary.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I can afford it.”

  He began to climb the carpeted stairs and turned around to look at her quizzically. She sighed and followed him.

  “Actually, no. No fucking way you’re buying. Lunch is on me.”

  David shrugged.

  “You’re the boss. But I warn you, I’m expensive to run too.”

  “And I can also afford it,” Faye replied.

  The only question was how long that would remain true.

  “Come on, aren’t you going to try an oyster? Just one?”

  Kerstin looked at Faye in disgust.

  “I don’t know how many times you’ve asked me that, and do you ever get anything but the usual response? No.”

  “It’s delicious—I promise.”

  Faye squeezed lemon over an oyster and added a small teaspoon of chopped red onion in vinegar.

  “I mean, you have no idea what you’re missing.”

  “I prefer food that’s cooked. Like this lobster, for instance. No one insists on eating that raw.”

  Kerstin reached for one of the half lobsters on the large seafood platter in front of them. The Sturehof brasserie was vibrating with the sounds of guests laughing loudly and cutlery clattering. Staff in elegant white jackets with gold detailing smoothly maneuvered between the tables.

  “You like herring, don’t you?”

  “But it’s not raw, it’s…Well. What the hell is herring? Cured? Pickled? At any rate, it’s not raw.”

  “Well, if you say so…”

  “Shush now and eat your shellfish. Otherwise I’ll eat your half lobster too.”

  “You can have it—I’m still full from lunch.”

  Faye leaned back in her chair and sipped from her glass. To the barely suppressed horror of the waiter, she had ordered a bottle of Amarone. Apparently you didn’t drink Amarone with shellfish. The staff was well drilled enough not to say so. The customer was always right. But she was certain that the sommelier was in the kitchen in tears right now.

  “Oh yes, lunch. Did you…enjoy it?”

  “Pfft, it wasn’t like that. I just happened to get to talking to him in the hotel bar yesterday. Exactly the kind of man you’d expect to find in the Cadier Bar.”

  “But it still sounded as though you had a nice time? You’ve mentioned him several times this afternoon…”

  “Now you’re being annoying.”

  Faye reached for a prawn and began to peel it skillfully. When you came from Fjällbacka, you knew how to peel shellfish in your sleep.

  “Yes, well, no, well, we had a nice time. He’s easygoing and generally well informed without being overbearing. Always a pleasant attribut
e in a man.”

  Kerstin raised her eyebrows and Faye shook her head.

  “Enough about my lunch. So, we have a plan?”

  They had spent the afternoon in Faye’s hotel room thrashing through everything they knew and discussing their options for taking action. There were fewer of them than they had hoped. They had brainstormed the names of companies and individuals who they thought might be behind the acquisitions, but no one name had emerged as a more likely candidate than the others. Faye simply couldn’t work out who was trying to take Revenge away from her.

  Worse still, she couldn’t understand how her co-owners could go behind her back. These were the women she had shared Revenge’s growth and success with. There hadn’t been any dissatisfaction. Her leadership style had been met with nothing but praise. There had been articles in the press paying homage to her and she’d had the distinction of being named businesswoman of the year. No one had come to her with complaints. There had been nothing to set the alarm bells ringing. She simply couldn’t understand it.

  “You can’t leave the body like that,” Faye said in outrage, pointing at Kerstin’s half lobster. “That greeny-brown stuff is lobster tomalley—it’s the tastiest part. And you know you can suck the meat out of the small legs, and there are tiny thin slices of meat in the tail if you separate the sections of shell…”

  “Let me eat my food my own way,” Kerstin muttered, returning her lobster shell to the ice on the platter and helping herself to a fistful of prawns instead.

  “Perhaps you should ask for some tinned lobster next time, so you don’t have to bother with all that palaver with the shell…”

  Kerstin shook her head in laughter and brushed her bangs aside with the back of her hand. Faye took a mouthful of Amarone while contemplating Kerstin, who was clearly struggling with the shells on the prawns. She was once again struck by how grateful she was that Kerstin had come into her life. Things had been so different when they had first met. When Faye had rented a room in Kerstin’s house in Enskede, Kerstin had been living alone after her bastard of a husband had ended up in a care home after a stroke. This was something Kerstin had not been grieving over, given that he had made her life hell both physically and mentally. They had slowly become a family and now they were there for each other through thick and thin. Faye had difficulty trusting people, but she had absolute trust in Kerstin.